Just as the e-commerce sector is yet to recover from the knock-off sale of Konga, OLX, another eCommerce player has closed down its operations in Lagos and Kenya.

The classified company has since been struggling in its operations after it did a partial pivot in its strategy to paid-listings on its platform.

Apparently, OLX has not been able to make any profit after spending billions of Naira on advertising across conventional and digital platforms across Nigeria and other markets.

A statement credited to the company said that:

“We made a difficult but important decision in Nigeria to consolidate our operations between some of our offices internationally”.

“Our marketplace will continue to operate here — uninterrupted — as it has since 2010, and we remain committed to the many people here who use our platform to buy and sell every month. We continue to be focused on constantly innovating to make sure that OLX remains the top classifieds platform in the country”.

“Of course, we are committed to helping our affected colleagues during this transition and have already offered them meaningful financial and other support. As we’ve expressed to them directly, we are extremely grateful for their many significant contributions to OLX’s success”.

OLX will not be the first major classified or eCommerce company to shut down its operations in Africa’s largest economy. Efritin.com, a former competitor shocked the entire industry when it announced in 2017 that it was closing down to due to the harsh operating environment and huge data costs.

OLX is owned by Naspers, former owners of Konga and existing owners of DSTV, Multichoice, M-Net and other media property across Africa.

The shut down of OLX and the recent sale of its stake in Konga might be part of Naspers’exit strategy in major businesses where it is making losses.

Last year, Naspers was reported to have entered talks with MTN Group to sell its rest of Africa units of its DSTV/Multichoice media group. There is no update on this but the company has been taking several sell-off decisions that point to that direction.